Another colleague decamping for higher waters -- well, at least over to the east side -- another departure dinner. This time, we ended up at a place called Giorgio's of Gramercy, a little known contemporary American chosen solely because it fit the highly selective criteria of being in Gramercy and participating in Restaurant Week.
Despite an inauspicious start to the evening -- we were not seated until 9:45 for our 9 pm reservation (I chalked it up to a hazard of Restaurant Week), the food was uniformly excellent, the service gracious and unobstrusive, and the prices surprisingly reasonable for the quality (in fact, with the majority of entrees less than $20, the regular menu was a much better offering than the RW menu).
I started with a delightful summer offering of crab and sour apple salad with fingerling potatoes on a bed of greens and lemon confit, an inspired medley of some of my all-time favorite foods. My work friends raved about their buffalo mozzarella and grilled tomato ciabatta, smoked trout salad, and heirloom tomato and pignoli nut crostone. When our entrees arrived and I pointed out that the server had given me caramelized scallops with roasted beets rather than the pan seared halibut with cremini mushrooms and fava beans, she very quickly whisked the plate away, apologizing for having misunderstood me (it's possible I may have said "scallibut," enunciation not being a priority when there is tasty food to consume). I normally would have eaten the scallops, not wanting it to go to waste, but I was being petulant and wanted my halibut. Plus, in the time it took for the fish to arrive, I got to sample one of my dining companions' creamy basil oil-infused risotto.
And that brings us to the best part of the meal: dessert, which can be summed up in two words -- Baked Alaska. So retro chic! So good! Sigh. Good find.
No comments:
Post a Comment